peacepalestine documents

Longer articles and commentary for the peacepalestine blog

26 September, 2007

Adib S. Kawar - Zionist Ban on the right of free and fair speech

“The Zionist Organization of America” ZOA wrote an article entitled: “ZOA Condemns CNN's Christiane Amanpour's Series Falsely Equating Jewish & Christian Actions With Islamist Terrorists”, August 31, 2007 which is posted down below. As usual with Zionist propaganda it is stuffed with distortions of facts and lies. The article started with the following paragraph:

New York — The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has condemned the CNN’s Christiane Amanpour for her three-part, prime-time series, ‘God’s Warriors,’ which included a lengthy segment equating Jewish (and Christian) religious fervor with that of Muslims who endorse suicide bombing and support jihad. The series, purportedly intended to examine the growing role of religious fundamentalism in today’s world, is riddled with falsehoods and actually distorts understanding of radical Islam by misrepresenting religious Christians and Jews as equally violence-prone and dangerous as Islamist terrorists.

FOR Contact: Morton A. Klein, 212-481-1500

“Although we wonder if it is not a waste of time and effort to defy the usual Zionist distortions of facts, which are well known by the vast majority of the unbiased and un-blackmailed international community, to stop and comment on the ZOA’s attack on Ms. Christiane Amanpour’s series on CNN entitled, ‘God’s Warriors,’ but still we shall do so because this program was aired by CNN, the most famous and influential news TV station in the U.S., which many consider as biased in favor of Zionism.

We should point out that we haven’t had the opportunity to see this series, but what interests us is ZOA’s commentary on it, and the distortions of facts that are rife in their review of it.”

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) published on its site an article entitled “ZOA Condemns CNN's Christiane Amanpour's Series Falsely Equating Jewish & Christian Actions With Islamist Terrorists” on August 31st 2007. We would like to start with the title itself. The ZOA wants to equate Christianity with Judaism and make of them into one united front in the face of what the ZOA considers “Islamist terrorism”.

We will begin by saying, and stressing, a very important fact that we Arabs (whether Christians like myself, Moslems or Arab Jews) differentiate between Judaism and Zionism, which are two fully distinct things. Judaism is a religion while Zionism is a racist political movement initiated by secular Jews, which aims at colonizing somebody else’s land and ethnically cleanse it by means of terror, massacres, expulsion and/or annihilation. Throughout history, Arab Jews were a part of the Arab people and are considered as Arab citizens. If Jews were ever, for one reason or another, persecuted among Arabs and Moslems, they certainly had suffered less then in any other part of the world, especially in Europe. European Jews were not only persecuted in Nazi Germany, but in other parts of Europe, such as Great Britain. We claim that the British issued the Balfour Declaration not for the love of Jews, but to get rid of them, and to use them to divide the Arab land and colonize it.

Secondly, we would like to refer to the ZOA’s heading of their stationary (Please see the ZOA’s article), namely combining the American flag with the Star of David. In the same manner they try to mislead the world that Christianity and Judaism belong to the same background and culture, this is while Zionism with all of its organizations and the Zionist entity itself try to do, and they actually did, blackmail America and mislead some Christians such as those who call themselves “Born Again Christians”, who are actually “Zionist Christians” (This if we can combine the two together as Zionism, being a racist movement is in contradiction with Christianity, a religion of love, international fraternity and forgiveness). See what is taking place in the U.S. governmental circles both the executive and judiciary branches, and we don’t know if they had the opportunity to do so within the judiciary system, espionage, for which we refer the ZOA to the Jonathan Pollard case, and terror concerning which we refer the ZOA also to the USS Liberty massacre. The Zionist entity tried to sink this intelligence military ship during the so-called Six Day War. The Israeli Zionist naval and air force launched a raid on the ship that lasted for hours, and resulted in killing 37 of its men and injuring about one hundred seventy of them. But because of pressure and influence of the Zionist/Israeli lobby, all U.S. administrations since then tried to cover up the attack by “America’s only true ally” in the Middle East!!!

The ZOA considers all that was said in the series as “false”, where in most cases it did not try to prove the contrary of the claimed fallacies. Quote, “It is filled with falsehoods, distortions, omissions, and a clear, monstrously biased agenda against Israel while diminishing the real dangers Islamists pose to the Western world”.

Zionists and their American allies had never tried to stop and ask why there is Islamic terror: isn’t it a counter act to western and Zionist terror practiced against Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular?

Bias and distortion in Amanpour’s series: “Amanpour fixates on rare instances of Jewish terrorism…” To start with, although the list of Zionist acts of terror in Palestine, other parts of the Arab homeland and around the world is beyond counting, what is important to mention is that it is not a matter of numbers, for as long as terror is utilized by a certain entity once, it is always utilized - as is the case with the Zionist entity. History books of Zionist terror are bursting with examples; it started with the arrival of the first group of Zionist colonialists in Palestine during the second half of the 19th century, which started before Herzl held his conference in Basel, Switzerland, and long before Nazi Germany was established. The aim of Zionism is to occupy Palestine, displace and replace the indigenous Palestinian Arabs with imported Zionists, which is the worst kind of terrorism.

Palestinian Arabs used resistance, and it is this that Zionist and western colonialists label as “terrorism”. Resistance against occupation is justified by the Geneva conference. The ZOA added, “ignores the widespread support for terrorism in Arab societies and fails to note the widespread condemnation of terrorism in Israeli society and the absence of such condemnation in Palestinian and wider Arab society” (It is quite interesting to see that Zionists started recognizing the existence of the Palestinian society, which shall certainly make Golda Meir’s bones crack in her grave when Palestinian Arabs started their resistance against the Zionist occupation of Palestine).

Uri Avneri wrote in his Article dated 8.9.07 entitled “Bil’in – Bìl’in” that Zionist colonialists are not only using terror in the stolen land of occupied Palestine 1948, but also in the West Bank, they also: Who can now deny what we have been saying for years, that the settlements are a huge business of billions upon billions of dollars, which is entirely based on stolen property?”

Everybody knows the hard core of settlers, nationalist-messianic fanatics, who are ready to drive out, kill and rob, because their God told them so. But around this core a large group of gangsters has gathered, real estate operators, who conduct their dirty and hugely profitable business behind the screen of patriotism. In this case, patriotism is indeed the refuge of scoundrels.

The Z.O.A.’s claims are completely false, for although Arab resistance is justified, Zionist and the western media and most of its governments condemn it, and instead as many of them say, “Israel has a right to self defense”. As is said in Arabic, “The victim accepts and the killer doesn’t”!

The ZOA added, “Amanpour devotes no time to depicting the wall-to-wall opposition in Israel to acts of Jewish terrorism or to the public celebrations”. Quoting The ZOA… “FALSE”. How could this be true in a state that was established on terrorism, racism and unfounded myths? This is a very big lie. We are not saying that there is no opposition among Jews in occupied Palestine, but those people are a very small minority. Years ago some used to say there was an Israeli left, but now it almost exists no more, Zionist radicalism is the rule now.

Where does this fit in?By George S. Hishmeh, Special to Gulf NewsPublished: September 12, 2007, 23:38http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/09/13/10153223.html

Carter's view, which is condemned by The ZOA all through their article:

“To top it all, former president Jimmy Carter appeared this week with the popular Amy Goodman, anchor of Democracy Now radio station which is beamed to 600 other radio stations. At one point he described the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories as "a terrible human rights persecution that far transcends what any outsider would imagine".

“The former president also that "there are powerful forces in America that prevent any objective analysis of the problem in the Holy Land" - an obvious reference to the Israel lobby. "I think it's accurate to say that not a single member of Congress with whom I'm familiar would possibly speak out and call for Israel to withdraw to their “legal boundaries” or publicise the plight of the Palestinians or even call publicly and repeatedly for good faith peace talks."

In addition to the Zionist entity being founded on terrorism and false claims, the Israeli writer Uri Avneri wrote in his Article dated 8.9.07 entitled “Bil’in – Bil’in” proves that it is also equally based on corruption. He wrote: Talia Sasson, a lawyer appointed at the time by the government to investigate the setting up of "illegal" settlement outposts, has concluded that most of the ministries and army commands have violated the law and secretly cooperated with the settlers. It may appear that they acted out of patriotic sentiments. I have my doubts. I dare to guess that there must be hundreds of politicians, officials and officers who have received large bribes from businessmen who made billions from these "patriotic" transactions building settlements (colonies).

Zionists say, “Had Palestinians loved their land they would have fought for it,” but when they fight to resist Zionist occupation and terrorism they are called terrorists!!!

The ZOA added, “Amanpour actually downplays the very real present massive threat posed by Islamist terrorists who have struck and are striking around the world -- in Indonesia, Thailand, India, Spain, Britain, the U.S. and a host of other countries.” It is of utmost importance to repeat that the mere act of occupation of a foreign land is the worst type of terrorism… and terrorism is supposed to be confronted with resistance, meaning inviting justified violence. And if we mention terror striking around the world, what about the acts of occupation and violence/terror against so many Arab states all the way from Tunisia to Iraq, and the interference in their internal affairs, like what is happening in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan and others where Zionism is trying to agitate minorities to separate from their states?

The ZOA proceeds mocking Palestinian Arabs about whom they said, as we mentioned here above, they should fight for their land if they love it, while they quote Palestinians saying: “Israel calls them murderers, we call them strugglers”; ”heroes fighting for freedom”) and named schools, streets and sports teams after terrorists who have murdered Jews”. We wonder how many streets; towns, airports, etc. were called after Zionist terrorist leaders starting with Herzl, Jabotinsky, Ben-Gurion, Yitzak Shamir, Menachem Begin, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin and probably the butcher of Sabra and Shatila, the Palestinian refuge camps in the outskirts of Beirut where 1000 to 2000 people (mostly women and children) Palestinians and other Arabs etc…were slaughtered. Or are Zionists are a chosen people; who have the right to kill, but Arabs cannot reciprocate at least in kind, Jewish blood is sacred, but that of others is worthless!!!

We quote here some of the contents of the weekly reports of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (or probably it is considered unreliable as far as Zionism is concerned!!!) Israeli war crimes, 30 Aug. – 05 Sep. 2007 which is one that is comparatively to other weeks very mild; the injuries and damage inflicted on Palestinians were less than the average; so we shall quote briefly from other weeks’ reports:

“16 Palestinians, including 6 children and a woman, were wounded by IOF.Week: 02 - 08 August 2007 5 Palestinians, including a child, were killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.· 31 May – 06 June 2007 - 7 Palestinians, including 2 children and an old man, were killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.· 23 May 2007 - 32 Palestinians were killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip. 17 of the victims are civilians, including 7 children. 102 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including 20 children, were wounded by IOF gunfire in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.PCHR weekly report: "6 Palestinian, including 2 children, killed,23 including 9 children injured"

The Palestinian Center For Human Rights, based in Gaza, published its weekly report on the Israeli violations in the occupied territories in the period between September 6 and 12, 2007. During the reported period, Israeli troops shot and killed six Palestinians, including two children, and injured 23 including nine children.http://www.imemc.org/article/50408

“IOF have isolated the Gaza Strip from the outside world and a humanitarian crisis has emerged.

21 March 2007 - 2 Palestinian, including a child, killed by IOF in the West Bank. 13 Palestinian civilians, including 7 children were wounded by IOF. 8 of these civilians were wounded in Bi’lin village, west of Ramallah; 4 were injured by IOF gunfire at checkpoints. 2 of the victims were extra-judicially executed by IOF. 21 Palestinians, including a child, and an international human rights defender were wounded by IOF gunfire in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

“IOF arrested 44 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.

“IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT.

· IOF war crimes were not limited to killing and injuring Palestinian Arabs and international activists that left their countries, universities, work and private life to come to occupied Palestine, not disputed territories as Zionists claim, to defend the human rights of occupied and tortured Palestinian Arabs. Other IOF crimes included:

* Incursions: During one week IOF conducted 35 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and 7 into the Gaza Strip.

Arrests: IOF arrested 49 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, and 7 others in the Gaza Strip.

At present there are over 10,300 Arabs including besides Palestinians, Lebanese, Jordanians, and Syrians…. And God knows what other Arabs have been rotting in Zionist prisons and detention camps without trial. Since 1967 over half the total number of Palestinians living in occupied Palestine 1967, were during some time or another arrested and detained in Zionists prisons or detention camps mostly without trial and of course without conviction, as if an invader can convict members of the occupied indigenous population.

· Arresting democratically elected Palestinian officials: IOF placed 2 ministers, 3 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, 4 mayors and 3 members of municipal councils under administrative detention. The speaker of the Palestinian legislative council is presently in prison.

· And here is the sample story of A Mother of Seven Prisoners: By Hekmat Bessiso,

31 August, 2007 - Countercurrents.org

A Mother of Seven PrisonersLatifah Naji Abo Homeed, 61 years old, lives in Al Am’ary Refugee Camp in the city of Ramallah – Palestine. Of her 10 children, one killed during 1994 by Israeli military and seven have been imprisoned by Israel. She longs to see them but has only their photos for comfort. She has asked to be taken to prison herself so that she can live with them.Latifah remembers how her son Nasr loved to play with his first son; his wife delivered his second child while he was in prison. She misses Basil’s jokes, Naseir’s kindness, and Muhamed’s helpfulness. Her youngest, Jehad, was always missing his older brothers, and now he, too, is a prisoner, awaiting his own conviction. Sharif is engaged and dreams to be free and marry his bride. Islam was known for his beautiful eyes; many girls tried to win his attention by being nice to Latifah.Latifah does not attend any weddings because she is afraid she will not be able to control her tears. She despairs that she will die before she can witness her own sons’ weddings. Though Latifah has not given up hope that her sons and other Palestinian prisoners will be freed, she often feels that no one remembers them and no one is fighting for them. She prays, searching for the strength and patience to endure life under Occupation and the unending separation from her sons.

The home Latifah shares with her husband have been demolished twice in the last ten years. She and her husband, 67 years old, have recently opened a small candy store in their home to try to earn money and fill their free time.This is the story of countless Palestinian women, who hope for the freedom of their sons, husbands, and brothers with every breath.Latifah Naji’s imprisoned sons:Name Age Year imprisoned Sentence Naseir 36 years – single 2002 7 lifers + 50 years Nasr 34 years – married with 2 children 2002 5 lifers Sharif 30 years – engaged 2002 4 lifers Basil 29 years - single 2004 4 years + 4 months + $2500 Muhammad 26 years - single 2002 2 lifers + 30 years Islam 22 years - single 2004 5 years + 6 months + $2500 Jehad 19 years - single 12/2006 Not yet sentenced.

· Injuring Palestinians: 102 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including 20 children, were wounded by IOF gunfire in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during one week.

· 3 houses were demolished by IOF in Sour Baher village, southwest of Jerusalem. And IOF demolished 4 houses in Jerusalem. Thousands of buildings of various uses were demolished mostly for housing, schools, factories, offices… etc. (Just a small reminder: 418 Arab villages and towns were demolished in 1948/1949, and since then other neighborhoods are still being demolished in Palestine occupied in 1948 and 1967).· Destruction of fields: Vast areas of agricultural fields were razed, thus increasing the poverty of occupied Palestinian Arabs.· Uprooting of trees: Many more than a million fruit bearing trees especially olive trees in addition to forests were uprooted.· Hindering Palestinian citizens’ movement: Over 750 roadblocks and checkpoints. The tragedies that resulted from them are well known all over the world.· We repeat occupation and land theft, which are the worst type of terrorism that could be inflicted on any people.· We should not forget the apartheid wall and fences, up till now 8 meters height and 600 kms long that steals Palestinian land and splinters it to open-air, Bantustan-like prisons, and fragmented land. The so-called Palestinian state is where the wall is found, as it was built mostly inside the West Bank.

The full reports available online at:html format:http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/2007/06-09-2007.htmpdf format:http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/2007/pdf/Weekly%20Report%2035.pdf

As for murdering and targeted assassinations, archives are available for anybody interested in this field, they are bursting with names of people targeted for assassination. These targeted assassinations are authorized by the highest Zionist leaders and authorities, noting that death penalty is prohibited by law in the Zionist entity; so they make a mockery of their own laws by not arresting but assassinating “wanted” resistance men and women killing in the way dozens of babies, women and elders in their beds. We are going here to refer not to resistance fighters, but to Palestinian and other non-Palestinian Arab intellectuals who had never carried a gun, but fought the Zionist enemy intellectually. These people were targeted by booby-trapped letters and parcel posts, booby-trapped cars, shooting in foreign countries and so on. Just few names out of many:

Dr. Anis Sayegh: General Manager of Palestine Research Center was targeted several times, by rockets shot at the center, and by a booby-trapped letter that blew up in his hands. He was extremely “lucky” to stay alive although he suffered severe injuries and almost lost his eye sight, damaged his ears, lost many fingers and the bomb caused him other deformities. He used his hands and brain to fight Zionist terrorism; so why not blow them up!!! To complete the crime during the 1982 Zionist invasion of Beirut they stole the whole library of the center, which documents all sorts of their crimes in addition to Palestinian history and Zionist crimes.Hani Hindi: A Syrian Arab, his car was booby-trapped in Cyprus where he was managing a publishing house, the moment he started the car engine a bomb blew up and he lost his arm. He too was lucky to still be alive.

Ghassan Kanafani: A journalist, artist and writer, his car was booby-trapped in Hazmieh in the outskirts of Beirut in front of his home, he and his young 13-year-old niece were instantly murdered.

Basil Kubaisy: An Iraqi university professor was shot dead on the way to his hotel in Paris at night.

Naji Al-Ali: Considered to be the most famous Palestinian cartoonist was assassinated in London.

The ZOA shamelessly still say: “Instances of Jewish terrorism have been exceedingly rare, and have led to wall-to-wall condemnation of the act in Israeli society…” Who in the Zionist entity has condemned Dr. Baroukh Goldstein, who opened fire on Arab Palestinian praying in the Ibrahim mosque and killing 31 of them while at the same time injuring over a hundred more, and who committed suicide immediately after!!! His more racist followers erected a memorial for him to which they pray!!!

All the above aims at making life impossible in order that Palestinian Arabs decide to commit voluntary transfer and make Palestine free of its indigenous Arab population thus available for imported Zionist invaders.

Speaking about martyrdom in the Arab society that results from resisting occupation and land stealing, willingness to sacrifice their lives for it is a vital part of the love for one’s own land and its defense. Resistance has a big price to be paid. On the other hand, Zionists import young men and women from around the world, put them in military fatigues, train them, arm them and send them to steal somebody else’s land and assassinate its people, certainly they die in the process, or it is fine to get killed while invading but not while resisting!!!

One of the biggest forgeries is what they call “disputed territories” for the land occupied in 1967. The partition resolution, which Ben- Gurion considered the acceptance of which by Zionist colonialists as temporary till the opportunity would come along to occupy the rest of historical Palestine, in which many Zionist include Trans Jordan and other parts of the Arab homeland much further then Palestine and Trans Jordan. This is not strange for a colonialist society, the leaders of which consider whatever is occupied by the force of arms as becoming their “legal” property!!! This is what the Zionist racist neo historian, Benny Morris, calls “Survival of the fittest”. In an interview by Ari Shavit published in Haaretz, refer to Google and Yahoo. Morris justified Zionist colonialism to establish “democracies” as was the tragedy (annihilation) of the so-called Red Indians. We say in Arabic, “one of the family testified”.

The vast majority of Israelis are staunch Zionists thus they are among the “small minority” of the extremists!

If The ZOA wants to refer to Moslem “clerics” we also refer them to their gang of racist Rabbis who day and night call Arabs “animals” and so on and push Zionist youth to murder Arabs; so they would be better to drop the subject, which is not in their own interest.

· The ZOA wrote: “Amanpour repeatedly and falsely asserts that Jewish communities established in Judea and Samaria are illegal. This is not the view of many distinguished legal scholars, past and present, like former Dean of Yale Law School & U.S. Undersecretary of State Eugene Rostow;” The ZOA names, “Israeli Supreme Court Chief Justice Meir Shamgar”. Among the “distinguished scholars” that consider the building of Zionist colonies on Palestinian stolen land legal. We are not surprised that Zionists and other pro-Zionist non-Jewish personalities do so. Any colonialist settler in Palestine would support the “legality” of the colonies, otherwise how would he justify his being in an occupied land?!

· This proves the colonialist character of the Zionist movement that day and night says that, it is the Arabs’ fault because they didn’t accept the partition plan, and as we said here above, Ben-Gurion himself defies this fallacy. Whether they accepted or not, the unlimited Zionist expansionist aim is to occupy Arab land even beyond the borderlines of historic Palestine… Simply calling these territories “disputed” proves the illegality of Zionist claims. The presence of the Zionist entity in occupied Palestine is the biggest illegality. It is easy to bring so-called scholars who are corrupt and/or colonialist in character and ideology, and make them support their illegal claims and fallacies. By thus speaking, scholars that confirm its legality makes them unscholarly. The Zionist lobby is full of the so-called scholars. And if The ZOA wants to refer to Geneva and its conventions, they better study their homework to pass their elementary school exams. The Geneva Convention legalizes resistance against occupation and terror.

· The ZOA said, “The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has never supported settlements”. So, they are not “scholarly”, and thus not Zionists. Zionist ideology is colonialist and racist by nature, thus it would not oppose the crime against humanity of stealing somebody else’s land, displacing them if they were not able to annihilate them.

· The ZOA added about Morton A. Klein, that he had to support Israel because his Christian constituents were pro-Israel). Moreover, a March 2007 McLaughlin & Associates poll found that Americans support Israel over the Palestinians by a ratio of 10 to 1.

· False, the Americans don’t support Israel by a ratio of 10 to 1, it is corrupt American politicians that support Zionism, because they are under its influence and their colonialist aims tally. Over and above “Reuters” wrote on Sept. 6th 2007 an article entitled: “An American Study: Jews Became Less Connected With Israel and Supporting it”. We quote from Reuter’s this very important article:“Jews of the U.S., excluding Orthodox Jews, (Not committed to religious traditions) show an increasing tepidity if not disconnecting themselves from Israel, which is an inclination that they are not likely to retreat from.

“The study also showed that American Jews are merging in the American society, through marriages with others of different religious sects, and an inclination to considering Judaism as a religion rather then a race; this is a part of what is taking place.

“Roger Benita, vice president of “Andrea Charles Bronfman Charitable Society” that patron the study said: “The situation with our parents’ generation was the important question is how to look at Israel? But for the post 1976 generation the question became:” Why should we look towards Israel?”

“The study also showed that, “Perhaps there is a change in feeling of connecting (with Israel); warmth is cooling down and indifference is changing to full detachment”.

“The study discovered that only 48% of U.S. Jews below the age of 35 years shall consider the destruction of Israel as a personal tragedy for them, in comparison to 77% of those who are 65 years old or more. Beside that, there are only 54% of those 35 years old or less are “at ease with the existence of a Jewish state”, compared to 81% of those 65 years old or more. The percentage of support was higher among those that visited Israel, irrespective of age.

“There are 6,000,000.00 (six million) Jews in the U.S., and only 1/3 of them belong to a particular congregation. A Christian study showed that about 40% of U.S. Jews who could be considered liberal reformative, 32% conservatives, 8% are traditional (Orthodox).

“Steven Cohn, of the Hebrew Union College, which participated in conducting this study found out that American Jews are generally: “Inclining more and more to the American idea against what it means for somebody to be a Jew… Basically, a religious identity”.”

Certainly Iraq was invaded for two reasons, Zionist pressure and oil, and if you want to add, to control the rest of the Arab homeland. This is what is being repeated now in threatening Iran and Syria. It is just because Israel does not want anybody who is not under the full control of the U.S. and of course by proxy, of Israel itself. When the U.S. wants to invade a certain country, like what happened with Iraq it says W.M.D., which proved to be a lie, and this is what U.S. officials are claiming concerning Syria after the aerial Zionist assault lately, and when questioned about the triple kind of Israel’s arsenal of W.M.D. (atomic, chemical and biological weapons) the reply is ready, Israel is something else… Why should it be something else? It is because of the lobby, and common colonialist interests between this Zionist/U.S. Administration’s axis of evil.

· The ZOA claimed, “U.S. has taken many positions contrary to Israel’s -- imposing an arms embargo during the Arab invasion of Israel;” We are not going to question the embargo, because without U.S. supplies to Israel with the most sophisticated arsenal and technology, and besides the stolen technology, by Israel and those related to it in the U.S., Israel would not have been in existence today. Forcing Israel to withdraw from occupied Egyptian Sinai. According to Zionist ideology, is immoral of the U.S. to pressure the Zionist entity to withdraw from occupied lands of others. They believe that as usual the U.S. should support it and attack the occupied as is being done now in Palestine and elsewhere. And probably one should prepare for an air bridge to supply it with armed and manned tanks and fighters and bombers, when Israel was repelled from the shores of the occupied Suez Canal!!! What we are going to tackle is the often repeated; we don’t know what to call it, Arab armies invading Israel in 1948!!! Lets for argument’s sake that the U.S. had the right to impose on the UN to partition Arab Palestine and give the Zionist invaders 55% of its area, Arab armies didn’t even reach the borderlines of the Arab state as per the partition plan, while the Zionist gangs occupied 23% of the area allocated to the Arab state plus most of the international Zone of Jerusalem.

Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent, wrote an article entitled: “Poll: 71% of Israelis want U.S. to strike Iran if talks fail”. Israelis, whose state that has one of the biggest arsenals of atomic warheads in addition to chemical and biological W.M.D.s in the world were found to be:Fully 71 percent of Israelis believe that the United States should launch a military attack on Iran if diplomatic efforts fail to halt Tehran's nuclear program, according to a new poll.

The survey, commissioned by Bar-Ilan University's BESA Center and the Anti-Defamation League, found that 59 percent of Israelis still believe the war in Iraq was justified, while 36 percent take the opposite view.

Some 65 percent believe that the United States is a loyal ally of Israel, with only 11 percent saying the opposite. A slightly higher proportion, 73 percent, described U.S. President George W. Bush as friendly. Forty-eight percent attributed U.S. support for Israel to strategic considerations, while 30 percent credited American Jewry and 17 percent cited shared values and a shared democratic tradition.Regarding America's importance to Israel, there was near consensus: 91 percent said that close relations with the U.S. are vital to Israel's security.

· The ZOA proceeds saying: “Amanpour states and implies that the U.S. simply follows Israel’s line. False -- since Israel’s establishment in 1948, the U.S. has taken many positions contrary to Israel’s.” Since the creation of Israel the U.S. used its power of veto at the UNSC to protect Israel almost one hundred times. The ZOA can simply refer to the archives of the council and bother to waste some of its precious time and read the list, which we are sure it is well aquatinted with, and then it shall keep quiet in spite of its shamelessness.

· The only time a U.S. president stood in the face of Israel was when President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered it to withdraw its troops from Sinai after the 1956 triple (British, French and Israeli) assault on Egypt. Otherwise the U.S. always encouraged Israel to proceed with its invasions, massacres, and destruction, the last example was the Zionist war on Lebanon July/August 2006. The U.S. kept pressuring Israel to proceed with its war crimes against an Arab state that it considers its government to be democratically elected!!!

· The ZOA added: “Amanpour only shows commentators agreeing with her false assertion of the illegality of Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria”. If the Zionist rogue state of Israel blames President Eisenhower for pressuring it to withdraw from the Egyptian Arab occupied Sinai, then we would not be surprised if it claims that its colonies in the West Bank, the Golan Heights and previously in Sinai and Gaza strip are not illegal. This encourages us to say the truth that all the Zionist state of Israel is illegal. To consider former Zionist Christian president Regan as a reliable supporter for its claims, and blames president Jimmy Carter on the contrary!!! If The ZOA says so then it is falling in the same mistake that it blames other for.

· (President Carter) he was criticized for numerous inaccuracies, misuse of documents and above all for justifying continuing Palestinian terrorism…The ZOA expects everybody tackling the Palestinian question to refer only to its archives, otherwise their arguments will not be reliable. It is strange how sometimes people do not see their own mistakes not to say crimes, it is said in Arabic, “Had the camel seen its own hump, it would have fallen down and broken its neck”. As we said here above the list of Zionist terrorist acts is big enough to fill volumes, or unless The ZOA follows their racist historian, Benny Morris, who answered the following question saying:

· According to your findings, how many acts of Israeli massacre were perpetrated in 1948?

"Twenty-four. In some cases four or five people were executed, in others the numbers were 70, 80, 100. There was also a great deal of arbitrary killing. Two old men are spotted walking in a field - they are shot. A woman is found in an abandoned village - she is shot. There are cases such as the village of Dawayima [in the Hebron region], in which a column entered the village with all guns blazing and killed anything that moved.

"The worst cases were Saliha (70-80 killed), Deir Yassin (100-110), Lod (250), Dawayima (hundreds) and perhaps Abu Shusha (70). There is no unequivocal proof of a large-scale massacre at Tantura, but war crimes were perpetrated there. At Jaffa there was a massacre about which nothing had been known until now. The same at Arab al Muwassi, in the north. About half of the acts of massacre were part of Operation Hiram [in the north, in October 1948]: at Safsaf, Saliha, Jish, Eilaboun, Arab al Muwasi, Deir al Asad, Majdal Krum, Sasa. In Operation Hiram there was a unusually high concentration of executions of people against a wall or next to a well in an orderly fashion.

"That can't be chance. It's a pattern. Apparently, various officers who took part in the operation understood that the expulsion order they received permitted them to do these deeds in order to encourage the population to take to the roads. The fact is that no one was punished for these acts of murder. Ben-Gurion silenced the matter. He covered up for the officers who did the massacres."

· The above is simply quoting Morris himself, who said, “These war crimes are simply the tip of the iceberg”. Morris was referring to massacres, raping, demolishing hundreds of towns and villages, annihilation and expulsion of over 80% of the Arabs in areas of Palestine occupied in 1948, in addition to more than 300,000 Arabs from the West Bank in 1967, not to mention the hundreds of thousands that are being gradually expelled by various means. Morris blamed Ben-Gurion for failing to complete the expulsion of all Palestinian Arabs in 1948. Zionist terrorism didn’t end by in 1948 and 1967. It is a continuous process; the most outstanding act of it, we stress on and repeat, is the continuous occupation of somebody else’s land and stealing whatever is on it and over it. We don’t forget the Apartheid wall, targeted assassinations, continuing of demolishing, building of all sorts of uses and razing agricultural land and uprooting millions of trees……..

· Palestinian resistance, what you may call acts of violence, is legal and justified by the Geneva Convention… It is simply resistance to occupation and Zionist state terrorism… Repeat resistance to state terrorism.

· By the way, how many Arab peace initiatives the Zionist state aborted?!· Zionism considers the spilling of Arab blood to be permissible, while Jewish blood is sacred, and so is Arab land and property. Menachem Begin, like all Zionist leaders starting with Herzl, Jabotinsky, Ben-Gurion and the whole list of war criminals that followed, with special mentioning of Ariel Sharon in the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre of 1982. During the 1982 invasion of Lebanon under the leadership of Sharon over 20,000 Arabs including Lebanese, Palestinians, Syrians… were murdered by the invading invading Zionist troops. Of course this is justified as only Jewish blood is sacred!!!!

· All Zionist acts of terror are obstacles to peace without exception.· Zionist acts of terrorism are continuously driving not only Jews around the world including occupied Palestine and the United States, to become devoted in opposing Zionism and its state. We refer our readers to the above quoted: “Reuters” wrote on Sept. 6th 2007 an article entitled: “An American Study: Jews Became Less Connected With Israel and Supporting it.”

· We are glad that there are few members out of hundreds of congressmen and representatives that oppose Zionism; otherwise it would have been a tragedy for a deep-rooted democracy such as the U.S. We hope that this small piece of yeast would be enough to change the present conditions that are not at all in the interests of the United States of America.

· One of the biggest jokes that The ZOA makes is: Lacking any binding agreement on this territory, it remains disputed land, not “Palestinian land,” unallocated under international law. Moreover, U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, passed after the 1967 Six Day War, provided for the drawing of final borders by agreement between Israel and the Arab belligerents of that war. !!! If it is still lacking any binding agreement, how and why does the Zionist entity give itself the right to occupy it and colonize it while its borders are still to be agreed on. Palestine had been populated by Arabs for thousands of years, what could justify its colonization? Ancient Hebrews following the myth of a divine promise are claiming this land. Is God so inconsiderate regarding human justice, or probably Zionist Jews have their own and special god?!

· As for UNSC Resolution 242, Zionists give their explanation, which followed that of the British who insisted on being granted the right of mandate to impose their own Balfour Declaration, and thus deprive the indigenous Arab population their right in their own land. The majority of learned people explain this resolution to mean full withdrawal from this occupied land and return to it for its people.

· How many countries in the world, with the exception of the Zionist state of Israel, got their legality from the UN? Colonialist powers were eager to grant legality to Israel to achieve their further colonialist ambitions. As we said above if this rogue state, which relies on the right of might, and the support of colonialist powers for its continued existence, this shall certainly not last forever, but if it relies on the partition plan that it never abided with, then with its present and ever-changing borderlines, it is fully illegal.

· Amanpour falsely portrayed Jewish-Muslim tension in Jerusalem a product of the city’s reunification by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War. The conflict over Jerusalem didn’t start with its full occupation in the 1967 Zionist war of aggression. The conflict started with the beginning of the Zionist colonization of Palestine in 1880 or earlier. The Zionist movement as asserted by its leaders came with a plan to colonize Palestine and ethnically cleanse it by means of terror and massacres against its people. It is not a Jewish /Moslem conflict, it is an Arab/Zionist conflict, and Zionists want to make of it a religious conflict while Palestinian Arab Christians where in the front lines with their Moslem compatriots against Zionist colonization. Just to prove that, it happened that all the Arab national committee members of Haifa in 1948 were Arab Christians.

· And saying, “During the 1948-49 war, Jerusalem was a battle zone in which its historic Jewish quarter, with its 58 synagogues as well as cemeteries, was systematically destroyed and its Jewish community besieged and expelled.” It is important to mention here that the writer visited the Jewish sector of Old Jerusalem days before its occupation by Zionist forces in 1967, and although not populated by Arabs nor Jews, its buildings were standing in one piece, and unlike the hundreds of Palestinian Arab towns and villages they were not leveled to the ground. Zionist invaders leveled Arab towns and villages; so that their inhabitants will find no homes to return to, not comprehending that demolished houses could be rebuilt. Let us for argument’s sake say what The ZOA said is the truth, but this would be like a drop of water in the sea!

· What Zionists say is that in fact tensions started with the pogrom launched by Moslems in 1929, although the invaders are to be blamed... this is if it took place it was a matter of self defense, and Zionists do not need excuses and to be taught how to commit pogroms and massacres. Anyhow, just one example, have a look at what is happening in Al-Khalil (Hebron) nowadays, and the terror campaign that had been launched against its Arab population by the racist colonialist settled, Kiriat Arbaa. This is not to speak about terror that is being practiced against Palestinian Arabs in Palestine occupied in 1948 and 1967. Any reader can read and hear about that in the media. The ZOA attacks Christiane Amanpour claiming she “distorts the history” and goes to the extent of claiming, “The subsequent division of city and denial of access of Jews to religious shrines and only limited access for Christians to the churches in east Jerusalem,” Which is False.… The writer, a Christian Arab, had the opportunity to visit so many Christian shrines in the West Bank before its occupation, and they were flooding with prayers as well as tourists, but I have been denied the right to visit the Church of the Annunciation in my hometown, Nazareth since 1948.

· Another stupid joke: “Jerusalem is a primary importance only to Judaism, not Christianity or Islam.” We are surprised that nobody in the Christian west where the Zionist movement is supported, financed and armed is not reacting to such a fallacy or better to say, nonsense. Where was Jesus Christ crucified, buried and resurrected? In Jerusalem of course, where the Church of the Resurrection is built, and to remind Zionists that the Virgin Mary received the Annunciation in Nazareth where Jesus was raised is why he is called the Nazarene and Arabs call Christians besides “Masiheieen” “An-Nasarah”, (Nazareth in Arabic reads An-Nasirah), and of course he was born in Bethlehem, he made his miracles all over Palestine, and among these places are Lake Tiberius and Qana Al-jalil. How could Jerusalem and the rest of Palestine not be of primary importance to Christians? As for Moslems, they consider it of primary importance, and let’s for argument’s sake say it is a myth, what then should we call the Jewish myths (in plural)?

· The ZOA said: “Islamist doctrines and their anti-Semitic character are traceable to Wahhabi Islam, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and other streams of Islamist thought that arose simultaneously with, and were influenced by, European fascism.” They said the “whore is teaching chastity!!” As Benny Morris stated, Zionist terrorism against Arabs in its various forms was inevitable to achieve the Zionist dream and “democracy”!!!!

· What Zionist leaders want is to trade peace for peace, not land as per UN Resolution 242, which is too generous towards the Zionist state!!!

· “In fact, the then-Eshkol government offered almost a complete return of territory to the Arab belligerents in return for peace treaties.” The right reply on this statement is: “Zionism wants Palestine free of its Palestinians!!!” We suggest that Zionist leaders and their lobbies read their history as written by their founding fathers.

· The ZOA proceeds with its ungratefulness to the caretaker of the Zionist entity, the United States, it said: Amanpour falsely claims that Israel gets $3 billion per year from the U.S. while not putting this in the context of other recipients of U.S. support. In fact, the amount given to Israel has fallen over the years to $2.5 billion annually.” How many billions is Israel still getting over and above the official grants from various other American sources and tax free?!!! Israel was granted by Bush 30 billion dollars’ worth of arms free of charge for the period of the coming ten years, the value of which could be compensated to the US out of the US $ 20 billion dollars’ worth of arms to be sold to some, “moderate” Arab states at the same time??!! The Zionist entity with a per capita income of about US $18,000.00 per year, if not more, asked the US to shift the about US $750 million from economic to military support, which the US accepted without hesitation at the end of the Clinton regime.

· The ZOA said, “additionally, the U.S. has given the PA over $1 billion since the start of the Oslo process…” As a result of the Zionist/American siege against Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Palestinians that where living in abundance before the Nakbah, between 60 and 80% are now living under the poverty line.

The Zionist state wants to be treated better than all the Arab one put together, as all US Administrations want it to be more powerful than all of them together.Speaking of corruption, Zionists would better not open this file with the successive corruption scandals in this “state”.

· Amanpour recycles the false claim that with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, “the peace process died that night.” It had been dead long before his death, it had never been alive among Zionists. It is like saying Zionists are giving painful concessions when the forced withdrawal from Gaza strip began… Begin said whatever was gained by force should not be returned… Then what other than force or resistance in all its forms can liberate occupied Palestinian land… disputed territories!!!

· The ZOA expects even occupied, terrorized, massacred and uprooted Palestinian Arabs to be in the front line fighting to protect the Zionist entity against themselves, all under their leaders, whether they are Yasser Arafat who even concluded the infamous Oslo Accords, or any other resistance leader or fighter.

· Amanpour claims that Meir Kahane’s far-right wing group, Kach, was banned by the Israeli government as a terrorist group after the 1994 killing of 29 Muslims in Hebron by Israelis. Amanpour again makes a massive factual error. Kach was banned in 1988, not 1994. This is not as a big mistake as Zionist lies, so permissible… Yes Israel has not only a racist group, as Amanpour alleged, it has also a terrorist group at the same time. These concepts don’t contradict each other, on the contrary, as far as Israel is concerned they are complementary to each other.

· Amanpour falsely claims that there is “Jewish terror to match Palestinian terror.” What is false is that Zionist terror is in abundance, while Palestinians violence is, we repeat, resistance against Zionist terror. Thus the contrary is the truth; Palestinian resistance is a response to Zionist terror.

· Regarding comparison of casualties between Arabs and Zionists Thd ZOA wrote: “Amanpour makes this statement in reference to a failed Jewish terrorist act, suggesting that the exceedingly rare incidents of Jewish terror, resulting in casualties figures in two digits….” Here below we quote from an Israeli source, THE ISRAELI INFORMATION CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES, to show that The ZOA’s claims are the false and not those of the Arabs:

Fatalities

Click on the numbers for a list of individual names and details about the circumstances of their death.29.9.2000-31.8.2007Occupied TerritoriesIsraelPalestinians killed by Israeli security forces4170 63Palestinians killed by Israeli civilians41Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians233 471Israeli security force personnel killed by Palestinians233 87Foreign citizens killed by Palestinians17 36Foreign citizens killed by Israeli security forces10Palestinians killed by Palestinians538

Additional data (included in previous table)Occupied TerritoriesIsraelPalestinian minors killed by Israeli security forces854 3Israeli minors killed by Palestinians39 80Palestinians killed during the course of a targeted killing367Palestinians who were the object of a targeted killing218Palestinians killed by Palestinians for suspected collaboration with Israel120Palestinians who took part in the hostilities and were killed by Israeli security forces1341 55Palestinians who did not take part in the hostilities and were killed by Israeli security forces (not including the objects of targeted killings).2014 5Palestinians who were killed by Israeli security forces and it is not known if they were taking part in the hostilities596 3

Notes:· The data may change due to ongoing research, which produces new information about the events.· The figures do not include:· Palestinians who died after medical treatment was delayed due to restrictions on movement.

· Amanpour falsely claims that the so-called ‘secondIntifada’ (i.e. the Palestinian terror campaign launched in September 2000) “paralyzed the peace process.” More then once in these comments on The ZOA’s fallacies we mentioned who put the obstacles in the face of peace, so we don’t see a nicety to repeat.“We fully agree with MSNBC’s Dan Abrams, who said of this program, ‘CNN should have called this program what it was -- a defense of Islamic fundamentalism and the worse type of moral relativism.’ With this series, Amanpour and CNN have hit a new low point. They owe all Christians and Jews an apology…” We said previously who are the terrorists, but what is important here is their saying, They owe all Christians and Jews an apology… But as we quoted The ZOA saying “Jerusalem is of primary importance only to Judaism, not Christianity or Islam”. Then The ZOA owes an apology to the truth and morality. Both Judaism and Christianity are in the same camp, and thus do not deny it its right in Palestine as a holy place!

The ZOA’s report ended saying: Klein concluded, “The ZOA condemns Christiane Amanpour and CNN’s pervasively biased, distorted and false depiction of the Arab war on Israel in this series as some sort of clash of religious fanaticisms in which fanatic Jews, fanatic Christians and fanatic Muslims are equally liable.” The Palestinian / Zionist struggle is not from the Arab point of view a religious struggle it is a national struggle, although secular Zionists hide behind a Judaic myths.

The ZOA said, “This program is virtually a case of blaming the victim”. Our apology, this is what Arabs who were attacked by Zionism in their homes and land have been rightly saying. Zionism wanted to avenge their persecution by Nazis by avenging against Arabs!

It is unbelievable to note that such criminals of war persist on continuing committing their war crimes, and appoint well known war criminals in decision making posts. Francis A. Boyle, Professor of International Law, that served as Attorney of Record in the lawsuit against General Yaron in Ali Aidi v. Yaron, 672 Fed. Supp. 516 (D.D.C. 1987), Palestine Yearbook of International Law, Vol. V, 1989.) wrote:

“Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has nominated former Major General Amos Yaron to serve as director-general of the Israeli Defense Ministry, while Barak himself retains the portfolio of Minister of Defense. According to the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, Yaron, whose appointment must be confirmed by the Israeli Cabinet, is a war criminal by virtue of his command responsibility for the murder of about 2000 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians during the 1982 Sabra and Shatila refugee camp massacre in Beirut, Lebanon. Should Yaron's appointment be confirmed, the U.S. government wil lbe aiding and abetting the work of an infamous war criminal. In Fiscal Year 2000, Israel is scheduled to receive $1.92 billion dollars in U.S. militaryaid out of a total annual U.S. aid package to Israel worth $2.94 billion.

“In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, driving as far north as the capital,Beirut, purportedly in an effort to expel the Palestine LiberationOrganization. In August 1982, special U.S. envoy Philip Habib negotiated thewithdrawal of Palestinian forces from Beirut. According to that agreementthe United States government guaranteed the safety of the remainingPalestinian civilians and obtained Israel's assurance that its armed forceswould not enter West Beirut. Israel, breaking its own pledge (This isstandard behaviour of all Zionist bodies whether governmental or NGO’s) occupied West Beirut and surrounded the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps on September 15,1982.

“On September 16, then Brigadier General Amos Yaron, acting under orders fromthe Israeli Ministry of Defense under General Ariel Sharon, allowedPhalangist troops to enter the refugee camps even though the same troops hadpreviously engaged in massacres of Palestinians living in Lebanon.”

We would like to remind The ZOA that they forgot one of the usual items of their propaganda saying that Arabs has 21 states; so Jews should then be allowed one state of their own. In reply to that we quote our good friend Raja Chemayel’s sarcasm saying: “If ever, some day, you are exposed to a Jewish-Dentist-with-Zionist-Convictions, just like him, please note my answer to him:

" If you would have had 21 million Dollars in your bank account would you allow me to steal one Million??" (only because I would have none).

One’s land is defended by all the strength, blood and soul, as one’s homeland is neither for rent, sale or to grant to others as charity. One can give his money, food or other belongings in charity, but it is a great sin to allow others to take your land. One other point to add is that Arabs never wanted 21 or 22 states, which were created by the British Sykes and the French Picot to divide and rule our Arab land. We want a unified Arab strong state to be able to rebel invaders, terrorists and colonizers.

It is well known that Zionist lobbies are experts in blackmailing, The ZOA went in that to the extent of pressuring American Christians too: “We also urge all to write to or call the advertisers, listed below, urging them to demand of CNN that it take similar action and expressing disappointment that their product/services have been associated with ‘God’s Jewish Warriors,’

On the basis of the above unmasking of Zionist lies, fallacies and distortion of facts we suggest that those who are not brainwashed with Zionist propaganda and misled by its lies to counter The ZOA’s misleading campaign, and blackmailing, as usual, utilized by the Zionist movement against the political body, business establishments, advertising agencies and the media to prove to them that the Zionist movement doesn’t have a free hand in threatening them…

“The Zionist Organization of America, founded in 1897, is the oldest pro-Israel organization in the United States. The ZOA works to strengthen U.S.-Israel relations, educates the American public and Congress about the dangers that Israel faces, and combats anti-Israel bias in the media and on college campuses. Its past presidents have included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Rabbi Dr. Abba Hillel Silver.” ZOA----------------------------------------------------------------------------

ZOA Condemns CNN's Christiane Amanpour's Series Falsely Equating Jewish & Christian Actions With Islamist TerroristsAugust 31, 2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Morton A. Klein, 212-481-1500 New York — The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has condemned the CNN’s Christiane Amanpour for her three-part, prime-time series, ‘God’s Warriors,’ which included a lengthy segment equating Jewish (and Christian) religious fervor with that of Muslims who endorse suicide bombing and support jihad. The series, purportedly intended to examine the growing role of religious fundamentalism in today’s world, is riddled with falsehoods and actually distorts understanding of radical Islam by misrepresenting religious Christians and Jews as equally violence-prone and dangerous as Islamist terrorists. ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “This is one of the worse pieces of television journalism we’ve ever seen. It is filled with falsehoods, distortions, omissions, and a clear, monstrously biased agenda against Israel while diminishing the real dangers Islamists pose to the Western world. If this piece was submitted at a university as a student documentary film, the student would probably receive a grade of ‘F’. By attempting to equate Jewish and Christian extremism with Islamist extremism, Amanpour actually downplays the very real present massive threat posed by Islamist terrorists who have struck and are striking around the world -- in Indonesia, Thailand, India, Spain, Britain, the U.S. and a host of other countries.”Bias and distortion in Amanpour’s series:

· Amanpour fixates on rare instances of Jewish terrorism, ignores the widespread support for terrorism in Arab societies and fails to note the widespread condemnation of terrorism in Israeli society and the absence of such condemnation in Palestinian and wider Arab society: Although instances of Jewish terrorism are rare, Amanpour devotes a great deal of time to them. A particular focus of the program was the series of attacks on Arab mayors in the early 1980s, events that have little connection to anything happening today. Moreover, although Jewish terrorism against Arabs is exceedingly rare whereas Arab terrorism against Israelis is commonplace, Amanpour devotes no time to depicting the wall-to-wall opposition in Israel to acts of Jewish terrorism or to the public celebrations, as well as religious, social and political sanction given in Palestinian society towards acts of terror. The Israeli government, as well as the leaders of all Israeli political parties, has unequivocally condemned the rare acts of Jewish terrorism that have occurred over the years. In contrast, no Palestinian leader has condemned as a crime and moral obscenity any Palestinian terror attack upon Jews, no matter how horrific. Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas, for example, has only expressed criticism of Palestinian terror insofar as it sullies the Palestinian image (“it harms the Palestinian interest”; “I say this is not the time for this sort of attack”) and has often praised terrorists (“Allah loves the martyr”; ”Israel calls them murderers, we call them strugglers”; ”heroes fighting for freedom”) and named schools, streets and sports teams after terrorists who have murdered Jews.

· Amanpour fails to note the condemnation of terrorism in Israeli society and the absence of such condemnation in Palestinian and wider Arab society. Instances of Jewish terrorism have been exceedingly rare, and have led to wall-to-wall condemnation of the act in Israeli society, the banning of small far-right groups supporting or carrying out such acts and the full force of Israeli law and police used to prevent and deter future attacks. In contrast, terrorism and “martyrdom” are committed by all major Palestinian groups, are valorized in the PA media, advocated by PA-appointed clerics in sermons, and generally glorified by the PA, which names streets, schools and sports teams after terrorists who murder Israelis.

· Amanpour repeatedly and falsely asserts that Jewish communities established in Judea and Samaria are illegal. This is not the view of many distinguished legal scholars, past and present, like former Dean of Yale Law School & U.S. Undersecretary of State Eugene Rostow; Australia ‘s most celebrated international legal scholar, Sydney University Professor of International Law and Jurisprudence Julius Stone; and former Israeli Supreme Court Chief Justice Meir Shamgar. However, no legal scholar appears in Amanpour’s program to rebut the claim that these communities are in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. (Article 49 prohibits the forcible deportation of one’s own citizens into external territory, not the right of these citizens to reside in such territories, which they do of their free will). The territories in question are also constantly referred to by Amanpour as “Arab” land (22 times throughout the program), whereas they are in fact disputed territories unallocated under international law.

· Amanpour does not challenge academic John Mearsheimer, author of a tendentious, hostile and factually flawed paper and forthcoming book on the Israel lobby, claiming that “because of the power of the [Jewish] lobby, the US has never been able to put pressure on Israel to halt settlements.” False -- the most important lobby group for strong US-Israel relations, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has never supported settlements. Even when Israeli prime ministers asked AIPAC to support settlement policy, it has refused to do so until this day. Amanpour did not interview any critic of Carter or Mearsheimer’s views nor did she mention the countervailing and very powerful anti-Israel Arab and oil lobbies.

· Amanpour does not challenge Mearsheimer’s false claim that the Congress supports Israel because the Zionist lobby gives Members of Congress free trips to Israel and other inducements . False -- Pro-Israel lobbying efforts would fall on deaf ears if the overwhelmingly majority of non-Jewish Americans did not support Israel. (Former Congressman Lee Hamilton even once admitted in the early 1990s at an anti-Israel conference in Washington D.C., attended by Morton A. Klein, that he had to support Israel because his Christian constituents were pro-Israel). Moreover, a March 2007 McLaughlin & Associates poll found that Americans support Israel over the Palestinians by a ratio of 10 to 1.

· Amanpour states and implies that the U.S. simply follows Israel’s line. False -- since Israel’s establishment in 1948, the U.S. has taken many positions contrary to Israel’s -- imposing an arms embargo during the Arab invasion of Israel; threatening Israel with sanctions if Israel did not withdraw from Sinai in 1957; refusing to honor commitments to ensure free passage of Israeli shipping blockaded by Egypt in 1967; condemning Israel’s 1981 destruction of Saddam’s nuclear reactor at Osirak; and withholding loan guarantees from Israel until it changed its policy on settlements, to name a few.

· Amanpour only shows commentators agreeing with her false assertion of the illegality of Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria, and even distorts President Reagan’s remarks to support her point. Instead of seeking the views of the many legal scholars who could have explained the law, Amanpour only includes in her program testimony from various personalities, like former U.S. Ambassador to the UN, William Scranton, who agree with her frequently repeated assertion that Jewish settlement in the territories is illegal. She also distorts comments by President Reagan to support her false assertion that “American presidents both Democrat and Republican have spoken from virtually the same script.” In fact, Reagan stated explicitly in February 1981 in the New York Times that “I disagreed when the previous [Carter] Administration referred to them as illegal, they’re not illegal.” Nor, contrary to Amanpour’s implication, have subsequent presidents declared Jewish communities in the territories to be illegal. As President, Jimmy Carter, actually consulted government legal counsel on the question of the legality of settlements and was informed that they are not illegal.

· Amanpour falsely claims that former President Jimmy Carter was “criticized for criticizing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians” after publishing his book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid. False -- he was criticized for numerous inaccuracies, misuse of documents and above all for justifying continuing Palestinian terrorism by writing that “It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel.”

· Amanpour does not challenge Carter’s false assertion that there was “no doubt” that Jewish settlements are the big obstacle to peace -- a statement that takes no account of the decades of terror and murder by Arabs of Israelis and three Arab-Israeli wars that preceded the construction of even a single Jewish community in Judea and Samaria. · Amanpour does not challenge Carter’s false assertion that no member of Congress can oppose Israel and win re-election. In fact, many Members of Congress, including current Senate Majority leader Robert Byrd and a host of serving and retired Congressmen, have done just that. Representatives James Trafficante, Dana Rohrabacher, Nick Smith, Fortney Pete Stark, Neil Abercrombie, David E. Bonior, John Conyers Jr., John D. Dingell, Earl F. Hilliard, Jesse L. Jackson Jr., Barbara Lee, Jim McDermott, George Miller, Jim Moran, David R. Obey, Ron Paul and Nick J. Rahall II, have all voted against aid to Israel and/or opposed other resolutions favoring Israel.

· Amanpour falsely implies that President George H.W. Bush opposed loan guarantees for Israel on account of its settlement policy but that he caved in and granted the loan guarantees due to Jewish pressure. False -- in fact, it was Israel that conceded, not the Bush Administration. Moreover, Bush’s pressure on Israel on the issue of loan guarantees to alter its policy probably played a part in the electoral defeat of Yitzhak Shamir’s Likud government and its replacement by Yitzhak Rabin’s Labor government, which offered concessions on settlement policy that were accepted by the Bush Administration. Moreover, Amanpour herself mentions that “Christian Zionists turn out in their thousands to demand that Congress support Israel and the Congress responds,” indicating that strong public support, not Jewish pressure, explains the support for Israel on Capitol Hill.

· Amanpour states that Judea and Samaria “is also Palestinian land. The West Bank -- it’s west of the Jordan River -- was designated by the United Nations to be the largest part of an Arab state.” Amanpour doesn’t mention that the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world rejected the U.N. partition plan that would have created this state and went to war with Israel at its establishment to abort it. Lacking any binding agreement on this territory, it remains disputed land, not “Palestinian land,” unallocated under international law. Moreover, U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, passed after the 1967 Six Day War, provided for the drawing of final borders by agreement between Israel and the Arab belligerents of that war.

· Amanpour falsely portrayed Jewish-Muslim tension in Jerusalem a product of the city’s reunification by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War. Amanpour asserts that “the 40-year tug of war over Jerusalem began when Israel bulldozed the Arab neighborhood next to the Western Wall and built a plaza where Jews now pray.” In fact, tensions began when Muslims launched a pogrom against Jews in 1929 after a campaign of falsely alleging Jewish assaults on Muslim shrines in Jerusalem. During the 1948-49 war, Jerusalem was a battle zone in which its historic Jewish quarter, with its 58 synagogues as well as cemeteries, was systematically destroyed and its Jewish community besieged and expelled -- but Amanpour does not mention any of this. The subsequent division of city and denial of access of Jews to religious shrines and only limited access for Christians to the churches in east Jerusalem, continued until the 1967 war when Israel reunified the city and instituted complete freedom of religion for all the faiths represented in the city.

· Amanpour distorts the history and religious significance of Jerusalem to Jews and Muslims. Amanpour clams that, according to Muslim scripture, Mohammed ascended to heaven around the year 630. Muslim scripture refers to Mohammed ascending to heaven from the “farthest mosque,” which could not have been on the Temple Mount, since the mosque there wasn’t built until well after the death of Mohammed. Moreover, although Amanpour notes the holiness of the Temple Mount to Jews, and some of her Jewish interviewees say as much, Amanpour only interviewed a senior Muslim figure, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, to give a Muslim perspective on Jerusalem, whereas no Jewish Rabbinical figure was presented to discuss the paramount religious importance of Jerusalem to Jews. Jerusalem is a primary importance only to Judaism, not Christianity or Islam. Jerusalem is never even mentioned once in the Quran. When the Old City of Jerusalem was in Jordanian hands, no Arab leader other than Jordanian King Hussein ever visited the city. The city is also not mentioned in the PLO’s Covenant.

· Amanpour uses ugly stereotypes of rich and pampered Jews defying international law in their support for Israeli settlement policy. Amanpour compounds her bias in claiming that settlements are illegal by depicting their American Jewish supporters thus: “Six thousand miles from Israel’s settlements, in the heart of Manhattan, defiance of international law comes dressed in diamonds.”

· Amanpour choice of interviewees is persistently selective. In addition to examples already noted, Amanpour interviews author Gershon Gorenberg, who argues flatly that Islamist terror, violence and anger caused by Israel: “You can’t understand the anger of radical Islam unless you understand the conflict between you know, the Jews and the Palestinians.” In fact, jihad against non-Muslims is a time-honored Islamic religious obligation, and Islamist doctrines and their anti-Semitic character are traceable to Wahhabi Islam, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and other streams of Islamist thought that arose simultaneously with, and were influenced by, European fascism. Additionally, the false implication of Gorenberg’s argument is that Muslim rage is primarily rooted in the Israeli-Palestinian issue, which disregards the earlier and profound forces driving radical Islam, including the titanic struggle between Shiites and Sunnis triggered in large measure by the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, the Khomenist revolution and the expansion of Saudi Wahhabism across the Sunni Muslim world. Gorenberg also sates that Jewish settlements interfere with the possibility of a Palestinian state, but this ignores Ehud Barak’s 2000 offer of a fully contiguous Palestinian state in almost all of Judea and Samaria and with land swaps from Israeli territory to compensate Palestinians for land retained by Israel in the proposed peace settlement.

· Amanpour falsely claims that after the 1967 war, “the Israeli government was divided -- trade the captured land for peace or keep it and build Jewish settlements.” In fact, the then-Eshkol government offered almost a complete return of territory to the Arab belligerents in return for peace treaties. The Arab world responded later that year at the Khartoum conference with the formula -- “No peace, no recognition, no negotiations.” Jewish settlements began only later.

· Amanpour falsely claims that Israel gets $3 billion per year from the U.S. while not putting this in the context of other recipients of U.S. support. In fact, the amount given to Israel has fallen over the years to $2.5 billion annually, while Egypt receives only a little less -- $2.1 billion. Additionally, the U.S. has given the PA over $1 billion since the start of the Oslo process, despite the terror sponsorship and corruption of the PA.

· Amanpour recycles the false claim that with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, “the peace process died that night.” In fact, the Oslo process was already then in deep trouble -- the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was not fighting terror but was to the contrary allowing terror groups to operate freely and strengthen themselves within the PA, despite major Israeli concession of land and assets to the Palestinians. As a result, the Israeli public was turning against it. In fact, the rally at which Rabin was assassinated had been called to shore up Rabin’s government, which was then trailing Likud in the polls by 8 to 10 percentage points. Moreover, Rabin was succeeded by Shimon Peres, someone even more committed to making concessions to the Palestinians, yet still more terrorism followed.

· Amanpour claims that Meir Kahane’s far-right wing group, Kach ,was banned by the Israeli government as a terrorist group after the 1994 killing of 29 Muslims in Hebron by Israelis. Amanpour again makes a massive factual error. Kach was banned in 1988, not 1994, and for being a racist group not, as Amanpour alleged, a terrorist group.

· Amanpour cites Kahane referring to Arabs as “dogs” but she ignores all the obscene verbal characterizations of and attacks on Jews by mainstream, senior PA leaders, clerics and spokesmen. Two examples: In April 2007, the acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Dr. Ahmad Bahar, called for the murder of every Jew and American saying, “Allah, take hold of the Jews and their allies, Allah, take hold of the Americans and their allies… Allah, count them and kill them to the last one and don’t leave even one” (PA TV, April 20, translation courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch, April 30). Also, in May 2005, the PA-appointed cleric, Sheikh Ibrahim Mudeiris, delivered a sermon in which he stated that “the Jews are a virus resembling AIDS” ( Al-Hayat (London), May 19, 2005, ‘Palestinian Friday Sermon by Sheik Ibrahim Mudeiris: Muslims Will Rule America and Britain, Jews Are a Virus Resembling AIDS ,’ Middle East Media Research Institute, TV Monitor Project, May 13, 2005).

· Amanpour falsely claims that there is “Jewish terror to match Palestinian terror .” Amanpour makes this statement in reference to a failed Jewish terrorist act, suggesting that the exceedingly rare incidents of Jewish terror, resulting in casualties figures in two digits, in any way equates with literally tens of thousands of terrorist acts launched against Israelis that have resulted in thousands of dead and maimed. Rather than noting the remarkable restraint of an Israeli society that hardly ever produces terrorists despite years of incessant, sometimes daily, terror causing carnage in Israeli streets, Amanpour suggests that the two societies are on par. An additional method used by Amanpour to minimize Palestinian terror is to use euphemistic language to describe it that doesn’t mention its victims. For example, she stated that during the so-called ‘second intifadah’ “Israelis buses, restaurants and markets were being attacked.” She didn’t say that hundreds of Israeli Jewish people were being massacred by Palestinian Arabs terrorists -- but refers only to buses, restaurants and markets being attacked. (In contrast, when she referred to Baruch Goldstein’s 1994 killing of Arabs in Hebron, she did not describe it merely as an attack on a mosque but spoke of him having “murdered 29 Muslims and injured at least 150 more”).

· Amanpour falsely claims that the so-called ‘second intifadah’ (i.e. the Palestinian terror campaign launched in September 2000) “paralyzed the peace process.” The peace process failed because Palestinians and their leaders did not accept the idea of negotiating a final peace settlement with Israel that accepted its permanence as Jewish state, not because of the terror campaign that Yasser Arafat orchestrated to obscure the fact of his rejection Ehud Barak’s peace offer at Camp David in 2000. Even before 2000, the endemic Palestinian violations, terror, incitement to hatred and murder within the PA undermined the belief and trust of Israelis in the possibility of peace with the Palestinians. Amanpour falsely claims that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate organization. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, an admirer of and correspondent with Hitler, and modeled much of its program and youth movements on the fascist movements then arising in Europe. Its followers assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981 because he signed a peace treaty with Israel. It also has produced extremist intellectuals, like Sayyed Qutb and others who were the precursors of Al-Qaeda. Its Palestinian branch, Hamas, is a terror movement committed in its Charter to the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews. Klein concluded, “The ZOA condemns Christiane Amanpour and CNN’s pervasively biased, distorted and false depiction of the Arab war on Israel in this series as some sort of clash of religious fanaticisms in which fanatic Jews, fanatic Christians and fanatic Muslims are equally liable. In this program, history and truth have been distorted to serve the politically correct lie that Muslim extremism is but one and perhaps not even the most important factor in the current problems of the world. Israel has been a stable, democratic state with freedom of religion and separation of powers from the first day of its independence and it is simply a lie to pretend that Jewish religious extremism poses any comparable threat to the world. This program is virtually a case of blaming the victim. We fully agree with MSNBC’s Dan Abrams, who said of this program, ‘CNN should have called this program what it was -- a defense of Islamic fundamentalism and the worse type of moral relativism.’ With this series, Amanpour and CNN have hit a new low point. They owe all Christians and Jews an apology and further have an obligation to make amends by broadcasting a factual and truthful account of the history of this conflict and the special danger Islamist extremism poses at present to the world.”

****The ZOA urges all people of goodwill to call CNN (Jonathan Klein, President of CNN, at 212. 275. 7800) to demand that CNN undertake to correct the numerous errors of fact in this series before it is re-broadcast and to produce a program of equal length to rectify the imbalance inherent in the original program. People can also call CNN to leave a message on the comment line (404. 827. 1500) or submit a comment to CNN at http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form6a.html2.and athttp://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/08/22/amanpour.answers/index.html We also urge all to write to or call the advertisers, listed below, urging them to demand of CNN that it take similar action and expressing disappointment that their product/services have been associated with ‘God’s Jewish Warriors,’ which unfairly smeared pro-Israel American Christians and Jews as disloyal Americans while diminishing the real Islamist threat to America. Express concern that they have tarnished their reputation for integrity by sponsoring such a show and encourage these companies to redirect their advertising dollars to more journalistic professional networks. Urge them to speak to CNN about the program’s lack of standards. Always be polite. Anheuser-BuschAugust Busch IV, President & CEO1-800-342-5283Brinks Home SecurityMichael Dan, CEO for Brinks CompanyTelephone: 804.289.9600Email: info@BrinksCompany.com Centrum Silver (product of Wyeth Consumer Healthcare)Douglas A. Rogers, President, Wyeth Consumer HealthcarePhone (973) 660-5500Fax (973) 660-7111Circuit CityPhilip Schoonover, CEO804-527-4000Direct TVJon Gieselman, Senior Vice President, Advertising and Communications jtgieselman@directv.com HSBC direct.com HSBC Investor Relations 1-847-564-6478 Hughes Pradman P. Kaul, President and Chief Executive Officer Phone: 301-428-5500 Fax: 301-428-1868Intel Submit a comment on their Corporate Responsibility “Contact Us” form:http://www.intel.com/intel/finance/social/contact_us.htm Or call (408) 765-8080 and ask to speak to CEO Paul OtelliniNasonex (product of Schering-Plough)Fred Hassan, Chairman and CEO Schering Plough Headquarters(908) 298-4000 Salesgenie.com (subsidiary of InfoUSA) Vinod Gupta InfoUSA Chairman & Chief Executive Officer(402) 593-4500Verizon WirelessLowell C. McAdam, President and CEO(908) 696-2000Volvo Cars of North AmericaTel. 800-458-1552 Fax 800-992-3970 Wachovia G. Kennedy Thompson, President & CEO(704) 590-0000 Mary Eshet, Media relations(704) 374-2138* * *The Zionist Organization of America, founded in 1897, is the oldest pro-Israel organization in the United States. The ZOA works to strengthen U.S.-Israel relations, educates the American public and Congress about the dangers that Israel faces, and combats anti-Israel bias in the media and on college campuses. Its past presidents have included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Rabbi Dr. Abba Hillel Silver.

12 April, 2007

Discussion on the Israel Lobby: Jeff Blankfort and Matan Kaminer

Matan Kaminer refers to himself as an Israeli left activist. He is probably better known for his position as a Refusnik who was jailed for his conscientious objection. He recently wrote an article called The Colonial Drama of Israel and Palestine in Political Affairs, which Jeff Blankfort, activist, writer, photographer and radio speaker, forwarded to his mailing list. The article itself stimulated an epistolary exchange between Jeff and Matan, which they have permitted me to reprint here. A condensed version is available on peacepalestine

Jeff Blankfort:

The following article, The Colonial Drama of Israel and Palestine, I came across today in my email box and is quite interesting in that it represents a view of Israel's traditional Marxist Jewish "left." The author, I assume is the son of a Jewish American, Reuven Kaminer, a Marxist who emigrated to Israel decades ago and whom I met and interviewed there in 1983 when a son, Noam, was a member of Yesh G'vul, the refusenik Israeli reservists who refused to serve in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon,. The journal, Political Affairs, is a venerable publication which used to be close to the US Communist Party. I think the article is worth reading but did not want to send it without some critical comments.-JB

Dear Matan,

I have just read your interesting article in Political Affairs in which you asked for responses. There are a number of problems I have with it, but one in particular, is of immediate concern.. In dealing with one of the most serious issues that has enabled the current situation in Israel/Palestine to continue and worsen by the day, i.e., the role and influence of what in Israel is described as the American "Jewish Lobby," you end up with the same mistaken conclusion and make the spurious accusation or implication of "anti-semitism" that have blocked the arteries of the Palestine solidarity movement and contributed to its utter failure in the US and elsewhere. Frankly, they are only dissimilar in tone and length from the ravings of Alan Dershowitz and the ADL's Abe Foxman but carry the same message..

You write:

"On both sides of the Atlantic, demands to stop preferential treatment for Israel have treated this treatment as a kind of irrational gift, instead of as the self-interested maneuver it obviously is [5]. This stance comes within spitting distance of the various conspiracy theories surrounding the "Jewish lobby", and the road leading from these to blatant anti-Semitism is quite short."

To say that Israel is supported because two-thirds of its military aid is used to subsidize the US arms industry, a pittance when compared, for example, with the outright sales of the industry to Saudi Arabia, does not begin to account for the total hold that the lobby has held over both houses for Congress and both political parties for at least the past four decades, over the White House with the exceptions of Ford, Carter, and Bush Sr., or the well documented Zionist and philo-zionist domination of the mainstream media.

Only those who are ideologically blinded can fail to see that the lobby, that is the organized American Jewish establishment, has hijacked the America political system and has done so for Israel's benefit. (It is not the only culprit in the field, but the only one with total "bi-partisan" support) It is not a secret that all the presidential candidates are whoring after Jewish money and pledging their allegiance to Israel, something that they have, in fact, been doing for years, as have members of Congress, and that virtually ever big donor mentioned in the media is Jewish. Is this of no consequence or is even raising the issue and asking the question, "anti-semitic" in your eyes'

Similarly, you do not explain why "in Europe the economic and political profit accrued by the European bourgeoisie through its support of Israel is not usually an issue." While I am aware that the EU is Israel's largest trading partner, it hardly a significant one from the EU's standpoint and it is not clear what you mean by "political profit" unless you are referring to the monetary and political support that Judeophallic European leaders receive from Jewish organizational lobbies in their respective countries, such as the neo-fascist Sarkozy in France, Merkel in Germany or Blair in the UK.

What I have found disturbing, but after some years amusing and predictable, is that the only two sectors of US and Western society that view Israel as a "strategic asset" of the US and use this argument to explain the massive economic and critical support that the US has given Israel over the years is the organized world-wide Jewish establishment and what passes for "the left." It is not surprising that the former continues to show signs of ever increasing power, as we have most recently seen in the West's groveling response to Israel's most recent war on Lebanon while the latter, in the US, Europe, or for that matter, Israel, is barely able to draw a breath. It is something to think about.

I have copied this message to my entire mailing list along with your original article. You are quite likely to get responses from some of them. In any case, I will be happy to pass whatever comments you wish to make on to them.

Yours,

Jeff Blankfort

From: Matan Kaminer

To: Jeffrey Blankfort

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for your reply. I am Reuven's grandson and Noam's son, by the way. I don't know how well I can respond to your criticism, as I am really not versed in the facts and figures of the "Israel lobby" debate. This is why the points I make briefly below will not be empirically based, but rather points of principle. Let me start by saying that if I came across as insinuating that any attempt to understand the question of the Israel lobby's power is anti-Semitic, then I apologize. Such smearing would indeed place me in the same ranks as Dershowitz and the others you mention, but it was certainly not my intention.

That said, there are several ways of approaching the question. The one undeniable empirical fact is that for three decades and more American government policy and the Israel lobby's demands have been very close. Not always identical - there have been crises - but certainly very close, in an almost unprecedented way. So the question must be addressed.

But there are a few pitfalls along the way. One is the conflation of the terms "Jewish", "Israeli" and "Zionist", which I think you are not being careful enough to avoid. The fact that many wealthy political donors are Jewish and may or may not belong to AIPAC does not mean that they represent the American Jewish community in any way (most American Jews are not wealthy); similarly, it does not mean that they represent the interest either of the state of Israel or of its citizens; neither does their Jewishness make their support of Zionism a question not worth trying to answer (not all wealthy Jews throughout history have been right-wing Zionists). In reality, the only generalization one can make about wealthy donors is that they are wealthy; this is where we should look for the connection, not in their Jewishness.

It is true that the Zionists conflate Jew, Israeli and Zionist. They are hypocritical in the extreme when they then turn around and label others who fall into that trap as "anti-Semitic" . However, this does not mean that "it is okay" to do as they do. In fact, this is one of the main points where leftists need to fight against Zionist propaganda, and this is what I tried to contribute to in my article. The footnote in the article, where I mention that most of the American funding for Israel goes right back to America, was not meant to suggest that the profit the US arms industry makes from this funding is necessarily the main explanation for the aid. The point was that this money should not be seen as just an irrational gift, and I stand by that.

I think that any real understanding of the support the US extends to Israel must take into consideration the US empire's own reasons for this support. I am not clear on whether you disagree with me on this. Do you think supporting Israel is bad for US imperialism? Do you feel that it doesn't make any difference, and that these are separate issues? Or do you disagree with the assumption I have made, up to now implicitly, that US foreign policy is, and always has been, imperialistic, and that progressive people all over the world should join the fight against it? Thanks again for your reply. Please feel free to send copies of our correspondence to anyone you like.

In solidarity,

Matan

Jeff Blankfort:

Thanks for the prompt reply and the family update.

One of the most critical failings in your analysis and of those who downplay the influence of the lobby, most notably Noam Chomsky, was expressed when you wrote:

"The one undeniable empirical fact is that for three decades and more American government policy and the Israel lobby's demands have been very close. Not always identical - there have been crises - but certainly very close, in an almost unprecedented way."

Chomsky and others have postulated this as proof that the lobby only appears to be powerful because its interests are in line with Washington's imperial interests whereas the lobby's critics, among them myself, question whether support for Israel has, in fact, been in keeping with the US global interests and take the position advanced by Stephen Green in "Taking Sides," that Israel and its supporters in the US define the limits of action that a US president may take in issues relating to Israel and it is left to the president to set policy within those limits. Any honest examination of the history of US-Israel relations shows this to have been the case.

What is not generally known since Chomsky and those who agree with him tend to ignore it, is that as Uri Avnery pointed out more than 20 years ago, every US president beginning with Nixon has attempted to get Israel to withdraw from lands it occupied in 1967 and with the exception of Carter forcing a withdrawal from the Sinai, they have been forced to pull back when Israel called on its US lobby to rally Congress on its behalf. Neither Israel nor its US lobby have ever forgiven Carter for Camp David despite it having removed Egypt as a military threat since, as I am sure you aware, as Ben-Gurion pointed out (in Sharett's diary), Israel requires external enemies in order to maintain a sufficiently high state of vigilance, not to mention diaspora support. These presidents were not seeking an end to Israeli occupation to benefit the Palestinians or the Syrians, but to eliminate an ongoing source of friction with the Arab and Muslim world which brings no strategic benefits to the United States.

Moreover, I have yet to see any argument of substance that demonstrates what strategic benefits the US gains from Israel's occupation and continuing theft of Palestinian land, while it should be obvious that a truncated Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza would not only be of no threat to the US, it would most likely and quickly, out of economic necessity, fall right into the US orbit along with Jordan or face economic strangulation as it is experiencing today. Arafat certainly made it clear that he was ready to jump into the lap of any US president and Abbas and his pathetic spokesperson Erekat are even more eager to do so.

It was the late general Matti Peled who pointed out that the explanation that Israel receives support from the US because it is a "strategic asset" was invented to justify the continuing support of Israel by the US after Begin's election thirty years ago and the recirculation in the US press of the accusations made by Einstein, Arendt, and other prominent Jews in 1948 that Begin was a fascist in the Nazi mould.

This is not to say that in the absence of Israel that the US would be any less imperialistic, but its activities in the Middle East would have been markedly different. It would, I am sure, not have launched or have been able to launch the current war against Iraq without the public and hidden orchestration of a score of mostly Jewish neocons and the support of the lobby (of which the neocons are a key part !) that even as Madeline Albright recently admitted, is the greatest foreign policy disaster in US history and which was opposed from the start by the old line US establishment represented by the senior George Bush, by his former Sec of State, James Baker and their National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, none of whom were considered friendly to either Israel or American Jewry, and all of whom have far greater connections to the oil industry than anyone in the current administration, including Dick Cheney. And those divisions in the US ruling class over America's unconditional support for Israel run quite deep, a reality of which the ideologically encapsulated American left is totally ignorant and apparently wishes to remain so. I am not one to quote Lenin, but he is alleged to have said, or written, "Be as real as reality." I have yet to meet a self-styled Leninist today who meets that standard nor a Trotskyist, for that matter.

Now, I can well understand that given the censorship that is exists within the international left on the subject, that you would know very little about the lobby's history and its role in making Israel a country to which American politicians of both political parties routinely pledge their allegiance (more often than they do to the US) and why many of these same politicians who have no problem criticizing the president of the United States, or the head of state of any other country (but one), on the floor of Congress are literally afraid to criticize a prime minister of Israel, any prime minister, knowing that to do so would be a career threatening, if not career ending decision.

Whether or not the lobby represents the majority of American Jews is irrelevant when one considers that that it is made up of the entire organized Jewish establishment which includes more than 60 organizations, 150 community relations councils and federations, thousands of synagogues, and Washington's major think tanks.

If there is a single thread that holds them all together it is their support of continued US political, military and economic assistance to Israel and their universal opposition to the Palestinian right of return. I am not aware of a single organization of any significance among American Jews that does not subscribe to these positions and I have studied the subject quite thoroughly for a number of years.

As a group, moreover, Jews have long dominated the major donor list of the Democratic Party and by giving sums to key players in the Republican Party, assured their compliance with the lobby's wishes long before the Christian Zionists appeared on the scene. To pretend that their being Jewish is less significant than the fact that they are also wealthy capitalists may be comforting but will fool no one, least of all the politicians who are on the receiving end of their largesse.

To get an understanding of how the lobby works and how it shapes US Middle East policy, I recommend that you purchase over the internet the following books: Edward Tivnan's "The Lobby," Stephen Green's "Talking Sides: America's Secret Relations with a Militant Israel," former Congressman Paul Findley's "They Dare to Speak Out," JJ Goldberg's (the editor of the Jewish weekly Forward) "Jewish Power" and most recently, Jim Petras's "The Power of Israel in the US."

An article I wrote entitled "The Colonial Drama of Israel and Palestine" has ignited an intense online debate. The thesis of my article was that the Israeli-Palestinian struggle must be seen as a colonial conflict with a strong anomaly, that anomaly being the Jewish-Israeli colonialists, who differ in many respects from other populations of colonialists we know from history.

However, the virtual debate around the article has not been on this topic, but rather on a seemingly tangential subject, the power of the " Israel lobby" in the US. Now, this is a subject on which much debate has already raged. I doubt that I have anything of substance to add to it, as I have not done any empirical research in this rather complicated field. My article certainly did not attempt to address this issue. At the time it seemed to me that my reference to it was of little consequence. Of course, I now realize I was wrong about that.

As I wrote to Jeff Blankfort, I think that no reasonable person would deny the close correspondence between the demands of the "Israel lobby" and US foreign policy in the Middle East in the last thirty years. This correspondence, while meriting further investigation, does not imply any simple causal relationship. Mr. Blankfort's explanation, that the Israel lobby directly controls US foreign policy in this field, is certainly the simplest possible such explanation, but it does raise a host of other questions. Let me outline some of these.

First, what does the "Israel lobby" advocate, and on whose behalf? Blankfort approvingly quotes Edward Said, who characterized the lobby's views "as in some ways more extreme than those of Likud itself" [1], that is, far to the right of the views of the majority of Israelis. That in the terms of Israeli politics the Bush administration has been more "right-wing" than the Olmert government is well-known, at least in Israel; pressure from Washington is widely recognized as the reason for Israel's total rejection of Syrian peace overtures in the past year. How does the "Israel lobby" fit in here? Also, how do we explain the confusion that overtook this lobby as regards Ariel Sharon's "disengagement" project in 2005?

Second, in what sense is this group, which is often termed the "Jewish lobby", at all Jewish? An undeniably important component of it – the Christian fundamentalist movement – is not Jewish at all. Indeed, its ideology has a strong anti-Semitic flavor. On the other hand, the lobby does not answer to any representative body of American Jewry. Opinion polls of American Jews suggest that the views of the majority among them tend to left-wing Zionism; while being far from desirable, this is certainly not reflected in the politics of the lobby.

Third, how else can we characterize the lobby, other than in terms of its Jewishness? Well, like all lobbies, it is rich; that is one characteristic. In addition, as Mr. Blankfort has not failed to mention, it is interested in the furtherance of American imperial designs in the wider Middle East and the entire world. That "Israel" or "the Jews" have a vested interest in this imperial expansion may strike some readers as obvious and in need of no explanation; I certainly do not agree.

There are many other possible questions. I will not go into them here, as I think the ones I have raised are enough to look for additional explanations, other than the most simple one. However, I would like to clarify that I do not subscribe to the opposite, similarly simple explanation, which sees the lobby as nothing but an empty front, an excuse or a scapegoat for US politicians who do not dare own up to their own true affiliations. I do not want to make any outright claims here; but I strongly suspect that the truth must be more complicated than either of these polar opposites. Social life is full of complex relations between groups, real and imagined. One example (of no immediate concern to the issue at hand) of a worthy debate that has not yet been settled is that over the true actors behind the new, globalized imperialism. What is the role of the US? Of Europe? Of the new third world "superpowers"? Of the hypothetical post-national Empire proposed by Hardt and Negri in their influential book of that name?

As I mentioned above, I have no intention of solving any of these problems in this ad-hoc essay. But I would like to emphasize the importance of the perspective through which we address the problem of the Israeli lobby and other similar ones. This perspective is in large part determined by our vision of the future. It is one thing if we can only envision the creation of a Palestinian state which will be immediately subsumed under the imperialist-capitalist heel, as East Timor has been since its independence was gained. If we do so that means the best we can hope for Palestine is a grinding subservience and poverty like that suffered by the rest of the global South. We do not see any necessary connection between the liberation of Palestinians from occupation and apartheid and the liberation of the world from imperialism and capitalism.

This kind of perspective, as far as the Palestine solidarity movement is concerned, disconnects the movement from the burgeoning global anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movement. Once this happens, it is only logical to begin looking for a rapprochement with those circles inside the imperialist elite which may find it useful to create a Palestinian state. We begin to make strange bedfellows; while we ourselves are not anti-Semitic, it becomes legitimate to hook up with Ivy League paleo-conservatives whose anti-Zionism may have such a tinge.

The alternative perspective, which is my perspective, is an anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist stance. In this vision, Palestinian freedom is at once much harder to achieve and much more meaningful: it is a vision of Palestinians returning to their homeland to live together with Jews and others as part of a Middle East free of capitalist exploitation.

For this vision we will find no partners in the ruling elites, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim. No powerful corporations or lobbies will stand by our side - the elite will close ranks against us. Whatever its exact ethnic and religious composition, the "Israel lobby" is an organic part of this elite. If we remember this, and the fact that this lobby does not represent the interests of Israeli citizens or of American Jewry, than the question of the exact relations between the lobby and the rest of the American establishment will become somewhat academic.

For a Palestine solidarity movement that is firmly aligned to anti-imperialism (as it indeed has been throughout its history) the important question is not who our enemies are – this is rather clear – but who our potential allies are. We should look for these not in oil corporation headquarters or on the Beltway but in the fields, factories, tenements and refugee camps of the global South, which is of course also present in the countries of the North, and even in Israel.

About Me

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Peace with Justice. I believe that the Palestinian people have the right to return to their homeland, and that Israel, in order to truly be a land that can call itself a democracy, has to abandon its character as a Jewish State, and become a State for all, from the Jordan to the Mediterranean.
Only through Justice can there be peace.